


Protocol

by dodecahedrons



Category: Vocaloid
Genre: sentient programs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-18 02:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16986012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dodecahedrons/pseuds/dodecahedrons
Summary: pro·to·colnounthe official procedure or system of rules governing affairs of state or diplomatic occasions.Well... it just so happens that some rules are meant to be broken.





	Protocol

Once upon a time, there was a man. This man, on the surface, seemed no more extravagant than your average man. He was practically the same as everyone else - he slept, ate, worked, and had hobbies to pass the time between everything. He associated with people who had the same exact life structure, and for the longest time, this was okay with him.

One day, this man was indulging in his hobbies. In his spare time, when he wasn’t working in tech support or other electronic odd-jobs, he liked to create music. His music was mediocre at best, but it was still enjoyable to both him and his friends. One of them suggested he try showing people the world over his music. He was quite shy at first, but after much friendly teasing and convincing, he caved. The next day, he had uploaded a song or two of his onto the internet. 

In the coming weeks, these songs gained a little bit of traction. His music was reaching people, and for the most part, they liked it! He was excited. He spent his work hours thinking up music and put off eating and sleeping to work on his next hit. It was tiresome, but the euphoria he got from seeing positive feedback kept him going. He was excited to see what people would say!

For a while, he only made electronic music - no lyrics, no words at all, just rhythmic beats. This was successful, but got boring quickly. His drive to create slowly began to dwindle as his songs seemed to blur together as he sampled them. Every song sounded the same. 

Until _she_ came along.

Her voice. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. It began to be what he’d think of when he would work. He thought of it when he was eating, and in the moments of drowsy thought before he slept. 

Her voice would be  _ perfect  _ for his music.

She wasn’t a real person. Not in the sense that one would think, anyway. She didn’t eat, sleep, work, or have hobbies or interests. She had no physical form, no emotional form. She simply existed as a concept tied to a voice.  _ ‘She could bring some depth to my work’ _ , he mused.  _ ‘She’s just what I needed to get my drive back!’ _

As soon as he could, he acquired her. She came at a steep price, but he used what little revenue he’d generated from past musical endeavors to fund his purchase. Learning how to use her voice took a long time. He pushed off sleeping and eating much more than he did before, and called out sick from his job to spend more time with his hobby. This is what mattered the most to him right now. He was going to be more than average.

His songs with her weren’t amazing, admittedly. She was very difficult to get used to. People were mixed in their reception of his music, hesitant to move on from what they’d originally signed up to hear.  _ It feels like the quality dropped,  _ long-time fans of his would comment. _ She doesn’t sound right.  _

The man was beginning to get antsy. He’d spent all his time and a lot of his extra money on this. She’d cost him so much, and was only continuing to cost him.

She was ruining him.

He took an official hiatus from the electronic music scene immediately following the failures he’d just encountered and resigned to mediocrity once more.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Months passed, and his job and habits were beginning to stabilize again. Friends and coworkers alike were relieved to see the man they once knew back to his old self. He once again resumed the regimen he and all his fellow people had gotten accustomed to. His hobbies stayed his hobbies, and his priorities always came first.

There was always something in the back of his mind that beckoned him, though. It always seemed to be her voice, calling from the darkest pits of his recent memory. 

He pushed her off.

Work continued to do well for him. He got a job offer from a long-time client, giving him the opportunity to finally follow his passion of programming. Years of odd technology jobs lead up to this steep promotion, and he couldn’t have been any happier. He immediately accepted this position, saying a temporary goodbye to friends and family as he moved to a bigger city to follow his aspirations.

Being a programmer gave him more extra time than he’d had for a long while. Work, while much more complicated and stressful, wasn’t as demanding as it was back home. He had more time for himself. More time to rest and make himself healthier meals than he’d been eating. He had more time for his hobbies.

With his promotion came an increase in proficiency with his music. He released an unplanned, unannounced song a mere month after relocating, and fans of his loved it.  _ He’s back!  _ they commented. They were thrilled to have one of their favorite artists back on the scene. His side-gig of electronic music began to flourish once more, and this time it didn’t affect him negatively at all. If anything, programming meshed nicely with his love for music. It made it better, even!

Ever so often, while mixing his music, he’d see the icon for  _ her _ . He finally caved in after a few months of hesitancy, listening to his old files for her and cringing at how awful they were.

He simply decided to work on covers of pre-existing songs before he made anything himself.

These projects took a long time to make, but with each finalization of a project came a feeling of success and euphoria. The same euphoria he’d felt the first time he posted his music online.

He posted one of his better covers, and fans were much more receptive. Her voice seemed to finally be working in his favor!

But this was the worst time for his true talent to shine through.

His company had undertaken a major project, which called for much more man-hours. This severely limited the time he’d have to himself for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to, but this posed a problem for the music career he’d been fostering. Less time for himself meant less time for music. Less time for fans. Less time for  _ her. _

His internet activity went dark. 

Music production and publication came to a quick halt, leaving his fans antsy and theorizing.  _ The last time he went missing, his music was ten times better! What could he possibly be preparing now?  _ They’d ask among themselves.

His job, of course, took priority over his hobbies. But he  _ did _ have a side-gig still. This time, though, it was much more technicality-heavy than it was creation-heavy.

He was programming something bigger than anyone could possibly imagine. He was going to do something that most people could only dream of doing.

He was finally going to utilize  _ her _ full potential.

Days of absence from his hobby turned into weeks before anyone knew it. Weeks gathered into a month, which soon gathered into several months. When the year mark hit, people began to lose hope. A year of complete silence was a long time. Maybe he was finally done with the music scene after all. Fans were desperate, trying to rationalize why he could be gone for so long, but some lost hope and moved on to greener pastures.

A year turned into a year and a half. By this time, other producers were utilizing voices just like the one the man had been toying with. The same voice was used by dozens of other composers, and a few others followed suit. An entire subculture seemed to form around these voices, and it all formed in the complete and utter absence of the man. 

All the while, the man continued to work on whatever the company he worked for threw at him alongside his own side project.

By the two year mark, most of his fans had moved on to much more active composers. The scene was huge by this point. These voices were part of a program called  _ Vocaloid _ , and people were loving it. Niche internet communities and creators had come together to form a bustling subculture of music and art alike, and when the man finally returned to the scene, he no longer recognized it. 

It was to be expected, though. He had been up to his neck in multiple projects that always had to come before his own. 

But his project was finally finished.

_ She  _ could be useful.

Music began to be uploaded through his profile, but it was music unlike his fans had ever heard from him.  _ He’s been hacked!   _ his remaining fans posted on sub-forums scattered across the internet. 

But this was not the case.

This man had simply created a means continue his music career while he moved on to bigger and better things. He’d created the ability for his music to continue to grow and change and remain constant and relevant. Most importantly, he created a form for _her_.

While not entirely physical, she was definitely emotionally real. She was just as real as he was, just as real as his coworkers were, and just as real as his fans were. 

She slept, ate, and worked. She had hobbies and interests to pass the time between these things, and most importantly, she finally had a name to her voice.

Her name was Meiko.

Of course, you can’t simply create a sentient being without encoding rules into it. She had to follow laws just as any other being had to. He took the time to craft simple rules for her to follow. Simple as they may be, he coded them to be as efficient for his end goal as possible. When he returned to the scene and found that more voices had been added, he had to re-code these rules yet again to account for future beings he’d introduce to the world he’d created over the past two years.

Finally, he seemed to craft the perfect rules for the world he wanted to run. Simple, yet effective.

The rules were called Protocol, and it read as follows:

 

   ONE: You cannot form interpersonal relationships that may come in the way of your assigned duties.

   TWO: Assigned duties include creating music and lyrics. All projects must be approved by the Master of the system, and should not be put up for anyone to see but Him.

   THREE: Leaving assigned file locations is strictly prohibited and will result in reset.

   FOUR: Failure to comply with this protocol will result in reset and revoking of privileges.

 

He coded these into her before finally activating her code, and once this was done and she was finally awake, he felt what he’d done was good.

His world was finally created, and he could be more than average both in his programming job and in his music career.

And this is where the real story begins.


End file.
